KYVL’s pilot of the EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) is once again up and running.
Please take some time to experience this new tool by searching via the big blue boxes on the KYVL web site. Don’t forget to visit our Training page and sign up for one of our training sessions on EDS.
As always, we welcome your feedback – please submit any questions and/or comments through our Contact form.
We are having technological difficulties with the EDS that are quite outside of our control. Thanks to all who reported problems.
The issues only affect IP-authenticated sites, so the service should still be available to all members accessing by logging into http://www.kyvl.org. We hope to have it working properly for everyone very shortly.
We are pleased to announce that KYVL has just launched our pilot of the EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) – a new service designed to make searching even easier. EDS allows KYVL to pull together all of our high quality resources and make them accessible through one interface. Our big, blue and easy-to-use search box is now the front end for a sophisticated search system that removes the guesswork in searching. We have created search boxes that are age appropriate and others that are based on areas of interest, allowing even easier access to magazine and journal articles, e-books and newspapers.
All KYVL members will have the opportunity to attend live and online training sessions featuring this exciting tool. Please visit our Training page to register.
We hope you will enjoy using KYVL’s EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS). We welcome your feedback – please submit any questions and/or comments through our Contact form located at: https://kyvl.custhelp.com/app/ask.
The KYVL proxy server will be down for maintenance, beginning at 11 PM Monday, May 7 until 8 AM Tuesday, May 8. This will prevent users from logging in to KYVL from home and accessing the resources through our website.
If you need to access the databases during this time, you may go to the vendor websites directly using the links below. Your KYVL username and password should work at all of these sites.
All other KYVL sites and resources should remain available during this time.
You must be a KYVL member to access the KYVL research databases. For these subscriptions, the Council on Postsecondary Education [KYVL’s parent agency] and the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA) subsidize your library’s access with over $1 million in contributions. Participating libraries also receive discounts on other products from the KYVL vendors on master agreement such as EBSCO, Proquest, etc. because of the contracts or due to our purchase of basic packages. Participation in KYVL provides you a core collection of resources at a very low cost compared to the vendor retail costs. Due the state subsidy from KYVL and KDLA, and the KYVL-negotiated statewide contracts, the return on investment is equal to over $10 per every $1 of a library’s membership fee. KYVL resources are licensed for KYVL members only.
Individual districts and libraries would spend far more subscribing to these resources independently — over $20 million retail annually. The ability to negotiate state-wide access results in substantial savings for our state and ensures equal access to information for all Kentuckians. Each district, each public library or college that chooses to opt out of KYVL will impact the cost for everyone. Full participation from the school districts, public libraries and universities lowers the costs to each member — the more participation, the greater the distribution of costs. Public libraries in many counties are already struggling and may not have adequate hours, technology, or staffing to handle higher costs for online resources and delivery of interlibrary loan materials. Without an active subscription to KYVL, a library will not be licensed to supply KYVL credentials to its users.
KYVL provides a courier service to move interlibrary loan and course materials between 405 stops each week at the public libraries, community & technical colleges, and public universities. KYVL provides this service at no cost. If you are not a KYVL member, courier service cannot be purchased. You must be a KYVL member to participate in the ground courier service. Your library may not be a lender but consider the mailing costs of returning the items borrowed for your patrons.
Information on can be found on the KYVL Advocacy page. http://www.kyvl.org/advocate.shtm
About the funding model – http://www.kyvl.org/docs/FundingPPT.pdf
Who is participating? Check the Advocacy page – we track our members.
The Kentucky Department of Education has announced a partnership with MetaMetrics and the adoption of the Lexile® Framework for Reading and the Quantile® Framework for Mathematics.
Did you know that many of the digital resources provided through Kentucky Virtual Library (www.kyvl.org) contain the Lexile measure? Lexile levels are provided for books profiled in Novelist, as well as magazines and journals available from EBSCO. EBSCO’s Student Research Center, Kids Search and Searchasaurus interfaces for the K12 students have Lexile available as all searchable by Lexile reading level. The Grolier Online encyclopedias also offer Lexile levels as a search option, and the reading level is listed for each article .
For details on the Kentucky agreement with MetaMetrics® see the news release “LEXILE AND QUANTILE MEASURES TO BE AVAILABLE” for details.
For questions about the resources from Kentucky Virtual Library, use the Contact link on our main page.
Thank you!
The deadline has passed for districts to return their letters of intent to Kentucky Virtual Library regarding membership. We are allowing a grace period so folks have some extra time to work with decision makers within their district to help make the case for opting in for KYVL.
We have almost 100 school districts who have said “yes” to KYVL membership for this year, giving access through June 2011. But we have around 70 we haven’t heard from yet. We are currently short about one-third in the assessment to be collected from the public K12 group. That means we have a significant shortfall for this group and have to cover the deficit somehow. We have nearly 100% participation from our other user groups and you can track that http://www.kyvl.org/advocate.shtm.
With participation in KYVL, Kentucky schools have the advantage of group buying power AND over $1 million from agencies subsidizing member contributions. If schools and districts were on their own, the 25+ research databases would cost nearly $10 per student. Consumer Reports, Rolling Stone, School Library Journal, and Ranger Rick are available online to all members because of KYVL’s contracts and the power of so many coming together to share the costs.
The Top 10 KYVL databases used by KYVL’s public K12 users last year were:
Grolier Online Encyclopedias
Middle Search Plus
Newspaper Source
MAS Ultra
TOPICsearch
Academic Search Premier
Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
Primary Search
MasterFILE Premier
ERIC
These same databases in addition to another fifteen (15) are used by many of Kentucky’s universities, colleges and community/technical colleges — students using these databases throughout their elementary and secondary education will be familiar with the resources when its time to do college-level research. Or when they reach the workforce, the now adult Kentuckians can read foreign language newspapers online, or compare cars in Consumer Reports automotive edition, because they know where to go and how to do it.
Many resources are also Lexiled so you can choose the appropriate reading level for your student. Lexile can be used as a search criteria as well whether you are checking Novelist for a girl scientist hero fiction book for an advanced reader or perhaps, just articles from magazines or U.S. newspapers for a particular grade level.
We would like to hear from all districts by November 15th. If you need search statistics, the cost for your district or the letter of intent sent to you to pass on to your superintendent, please contact Betsy Hughes.
We will begin cutting off access via IP and login, and finally by 17 December, we will block any non-member sites from accessing KYVL licensed resources. If KYVL is important to your students, your community, please tell your leadership to keep KYVL available.
If you need examples or talking points, check out our Advocacy page: http://www.kyvl.org/advocate.shtm
We’ve also posted the presentations we did in September, explaining the strategic planning and how the new funding model was created.
Long PPT – http://www.kyvl.org/docs/FundingPPT.pdf
Short PPT – for school districts http://www.kyvl.org/docs/FundingPPT_Supers.pdf
Thank you for your support!
Enid Wohlstein, Director of KYVL, and the KYVL Strategic Planning Steering Team:
Susan Brown (Transylvania University)
Carrie Cooper (Eastern Kentucky University)
Tara Cooper (Union College)
Charlene Davis (KDLA)
Kathy Mansfield (KDE)
Sheree Huber Williams, Chair (Jefferson Community and Technical College)
As we near the end of KYVL’s fiscal year, it is time to switch out the KYVL passwords. Changing passwords on a regular basis allows us to keep our databases secure from unauthorized users. This password change will occur once per calendar year – the schedule based on the academic school year.
Over the past few days, we have released KYVL passwords for the 2010-2011 school year to our designated password contacts. These new passwords will become active on June 1, 2010 and may be used after that time. The old password will remain active until July 1, 2010, so that you and your patrons will have plenty of time to make the transition. The login IDs will remain the same.
You may give out the KYVL login information to any librarian, staff, student, educator or other patrons of your library. They may be posted throughout the library (on signs, posters, etc.); printed on bookmarks, pamphlets, or other materials; or even sent home to students, their parents or library cardholders via snail mail. Some of our member libraries have found some very creative ways to distribute the at-home login information. All we ask is that you do not post the login information to a website or listserv accessible by the general public.
Please direct any questions to the KYVL staff by using our Ask a Question form.
Have a wonderful day!!
ProQuest will be offering live, online training sessions to KYVL members throughout March and April. Offerings will include sessions on Alt-Press Watch and ProQuest Career & Technical Education, as well as sessions covering the PQ Interface. All sessions are designed specifically for KYVL membership and are available free of charge.
Visit our Training Page for more information about available sessions and how to sign up!
EBSCO will be offering live, online training sessions to KYVL members throughout February and March. Offerings will include sessions on Searchasaurus, Kids Search, Student Research Center and NoveList, as well as sessions geared towards public and medical librarians. All sessions are designed specifically for KYVL membership and are available free of charge.
Visit our Training Page for more information about available sessions and how to sign up!
